


Cold Blows the Wind

by AceQueenKing



Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Ghosts, Haunting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-01
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-08-29 15:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16746880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: She is cold and dead and gone, but he still feels her, sometimes.





	Cold Blows the Wind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Filigranka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Filigranka/gifts).



To sleep is all but impossible on the Devastator.

Sleep eludes him most places, granted, but especially in the uncomfortable, stiff-backed chair in his pathetically small chamber. There is nothing left to him but this; a miserable small room in his own private quarters, only enough room to sit. He could have made the chambers larger, but what was the point: she was gone, and he required nothing beyond what was essential to ensure his continued living.

He deserves no rest, and so he does not take it.

But there are times when he finds his eyes closing; times when he finds himself adrift. He will close his eyes without even meaning to, and see —

 _(shades of blue and white waters lapping on a shore; a familiar_ neriad _beckoning him into the waters, her features blurry but unmistakably hers. “Stay,” she whispers._

_He runs into the ocean and holds out one desperate, metallic hand, but she grasps her throat and no words come out, and he tries to say he is sorry but the words do not come. And then she is gone and the seas are stormy and the only sound he hears is his own voice in a wordless scream that is lost in the wind.)_

— nothing.

He will always wake up in a worse mood than when he slept. The air will smell of salt and sand and oceans he has not seen in a decade and though there are no mirrors in his chambers (he cannot and will not bear to look upon what he has become), he will swear sometimes that he can almost - almost - see her in the shadow of his helmet’s reflection.

But she’s gone whenever he focuses upon her.

* * *

There are times he enters his chamber to the smell of coriander and thyme, and before he can stop himself, he thinks of her as she was at home: smiling as she ladles a dinner from a late-night restaurant run, stew that is warm and spicy and bread softer than anything he’s ever had in his life before her. The memories are overwhelming until he reminds himself it is memories of another life, oceans and shores away. It does not remind him of dreams, of futures that could have been, of —

_(She holds out a hand on a river of flame; he is on fire, burning, melting, and he grasps her arm and she tries to pull her up but his darkness, to his horror, drags her down, down deep into the flames until she cries out and then there is silence and he fears nothing so much as the silence._

_"Stay with me!" He screams_ , but _to no use: in these dreams, she never answers.)_

Anything, he tells himself. It’s not, exactly, that he is afraid of her, after all. It’s that she doesn’t belong here. She is the Jedi’s wife, another life’s most beloved. She is nothing to him, he thinks, and yet — he would be lying if he did not miss her. He stares at the bed in his bedchambers, empty and alone (for she is not there to fill it) — her absence is so palpable it burns.

He takes a deep breath and inhales the scent of a long gone memory and sobs with ugly regret until he feels his heart almost stop.

* * *

There are a great many places he should be on Naboo, and this is not one of them. There are no places that are off-limits to Darth Vader, and yet — this has been a place that has laid dormant for a long time. Her tomb is cold and silent save for the sound of the wind outside, and he runs a hand over the tableau of her above her grave, expecting —

_(life, so much life, life burning from the edges of her smile, life in the skip of her feet upon concrete tiles, life in the the softness of her snore against her skin, life in her arms as she holds him, life in her hands as she holds her neck, his hand outstretched promising nothing but an endless sea of death. She tries to tell him she would stay, he knows, somehow, but nothing comes out, as his anger consumes her whole.)_

Nothing. She is cold in the grave, as he knew she would be. It is all wrong. Wrong on every level. He is a strong man but his hand shakes as he runs his hand over her stone's face. As he leans over, he swears he feels a hand holding his shoulder; cold and lifeless, but none the less comforting.

“You’re not here,” he says, but a part of him wants to believe. His hand reaches for hers, but there’s no flesh to touch, no physical hand to hold. She is cold, dead, and gone, and there is nothing left to her but this, stone and wind. But still - there is a hand on his shoulder, and he feels the weight of the phantom all the same. He closes his eyes and doesn’t allow himself to turn around, though he aches to.

Instead, he stands sentinel at her grave, his shoulders heavy. 


End file.
